The invention relates generally to security devices, and more particularly to a security device engaged on one side of a door for preventing the opening of the door from the opposite side.
Many interior doors of residential and institutional facilities have minimal security features, such as a simple latch or locking mechanism. This is sufficient in a home where the desire to prevent entry results from privacy concerns. Even when security is required, the interior doors of institutions, such as secondary schools and universities, have only been designed to prevent entry by a criminal or vandal who seeks a quick and anonymous entry and exit. Such people seek to, for example, steal electronics, access academic records or deface a facility. Petty criminals or vandals rarely take action that attracts attention, such as breaking down a door or smashing glass.
Furthermore, many institutions are subject to mandatory safety rules, such as fire codes, which may limit the measures that can be taken to secure the facility to any degree beyond the mischievous criminal or vandal. For example, secondary school doors may be required to be passable at all times to allow appropriate ingress and egress. Even doors with adequate locks for schools buildings provide little resistance to a criminal intruder who seeks to enter the facility with more in mind than vandalism or petty crimes.
The lack of adequate barriers to a facility presents a problem in circumstances where an intruder to a facility is what has become known as an “active shooter” and the facility is a school or university. Such a person enters an educational institution with a desire to harm people with firearms and explosives he or she brought to the facility. Such a person also exhibits little self-preservation other than for a short period to inflict the most harm to the highest number of innocent students and staff. Therefore, such persons do not observe historic limitations on the sound their actions create or the violence with which they attack a locked door or the occupants of the room behind the locked door.
In recent years, students and staff of such institutions have been trained to blockade doors with desks and any other objects to prevent or slow entry by the active shooter. This is because it has become clear that, in their effort to harm the most people in the least time, active shooters will not “waste” time at a door that provides substantial resistance. Active shooters know that authorities will come quickly to stop the violence, and therefore they do not spend the small amount of time they have with a door that provides substantial resistance.
In such a situation, if an intended target of such a shooter can secure a door rapidly, then the chances of survival for the intended target and all others under his or her care are greatly increased. It has been demonstrated that the longer it takes for an intruder to gain access to a room of intended victims, the fewer injuries he or she can cause before being apprehended or killed. Thus, the ability to rapidly secure a door, and keep it secured despite the door and lock being shot by the shooter, are essential elements for any device that is intended to prevent an atrocity by an active shooter.
The need exists for a means for preventing entry through a door by an active shooter, and the means should provide maximum resistance to entry, be rapidly deployable without substantial skill and have no permanent attachment prior to use in order to comply with safety regulations.